Bright Eyes Cassadaga CD

It's clear that the year-plus Bright Eyes's Conor Oberst took between 2005's widely acclaimed I'M WIDE AWAKE, IT'S MORNING (and the simultaneously released DIGITAL ASH IN A DIGITAL URN) and 2007's CASSADAGA was well spent. The product of intensive studio time, a crack assembly of musicians, and lavish, lovely production and arrangements, CASSADAGA stands as one of Bright Eyes' most confident and consistent works.

The album throws together genres--folk, country, rock, pop--and coats it all in a gauzy dressing of strings, harmonies, and high-end atmospherics. Yet at the center of it all is still Obert's songwriting: witty, emotive, literate, and replete, this time out, with references to the expanse and grandeur of America as a playing field for life, love, and politics. At times reflective, at times rousing, CASSADAGA plays like a sweet pop dream, and adds another notch to Bright Eyes' already impressive discography.

Composer: Conor Oberst.

Bright Eyes: Conor Oberst (guitar); Mike Mogis (12-string guitar); Nate Walcott (electric piano).

Personnel: Hassan Lemtouni, Sean Foley, Gillian Welch, Andy LeMaster, Rachael Yamagata, Jake Bellows, Ted Stevens, Sherri DuPree, Stacy DuPree, Z Berg (vocals); David Rawlings, M. Ward (guitar); Anton Patzner (violin); Sarah Wass (flute); David Moyer, Brian Walsh (bass clarinet); Myka Miller (oboe); Stephanie Drootin, Tim Luntzel, Dan McCarthy (bass instrument); Shane Aspegren, Janet Weiss, Maria Taylor, Jason Boesel (drums); Dan Fliegel, Dan Bitney, Michael Zerang, Clark Baechle, Jonathan Crawford (percussion); John McEntire (electronics); Suzie Katayama, Bill Meyers.Rolling Stone (p.61) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[With] remarkable love songs....[Oberst] shows he can still tell us something by communing with himself."
Rolling Stone (p.108) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Top Albums of the Year 2007" -- "Oberst's loose, memorable tunes and lyrics about crises both personal and global are consistently engaging..."
Spin (p.89) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Oberst's countryish genre studies have deepened with a very adult loneliness."
Entertainment Weekly (p.72) - "Musically, it's his richest album yet, full of Nashville twang and Branson brassiness. And lyrically, the itinerant-traveler conceit is intriguing..." -- Grade: B
Q (p.117) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "The strapping, clear-headed coherence of 'Four Winds' is echoed throughout the album....At long last his star is born."
Alternative Press (p.150) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "[With] ambitious string arrangements and swinging instrumentation that echo great '70s works by Joe Cocker and Elton John."
CMJ (p.6) - "[H]e offers some of the most polished country-folk of his 14-year career. His lyrical acuity is in tact..."
Kerrang (Magazine) (p.49) - "With sweeping string sections almost reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkins, psychedelic pop structures, political protest poetics and dusty country production....[His] most opulent work yet."
Q (Magazine) (p.80) - Ranked #23 in Q's "The 50 Best Albums Of 2007" -- "Conor Oberst has made his most assured album to date..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.110) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "CASSADAGA is an album to warm souls, rally minds and break hearts in equal measure."